I was not built for running
My body is too heavy, too soft
Not made for traveling distance
Strongest in short bursts and hard fights
My greatest strength is in claws and hair pulling
I fight dirty
My body was made for back alley scraps and roller rinks
Fists pounding against pavement in a way my feet never could
Scraping my hands bloody to mask the raw red ache I feel on the inside
but we are not our bodies

We are not defined by this prison made flesh
sinew and muscle are not our handcuffs
We are more than this
We are more than fascia
We can be a thousand things

I was not built for running
My feet are cracked and bleeding
Nails torn clean out of their beds, like children running from a house fire
But I am not built to run
I am not built
for running no I'm not made
Not made to move faster than a walk
You know
Walking
It's running in slow motion

And even in slow motion we can see everything
It's the sound of the tape running backwards
Kindness is rewinding, kindness is reliving memory
but memory is inherently kind
It is a double-edged razor that you carry in your mouth
It is a double-edged
It's double
And the edges are sharp
It'll cut you into pieces just by looking in your direction

I was not made for running
I cannot read a compass
I have trouble looking at maps because all the lines look the same
They are all the same color and they are all caught in the blaze
Every line on the paper converges in the corners in the creases
They all lead back to house fires
Houses
built already on a foundation of ashes
we are not trees
We are not the earth
Our houses are made with our own hands, hewn from stone
but we did not make them
We were the tools and they built themselves
We were just here to cut the ribbons

But you know, me and houses have something in common
We are not made for running
We are built to be soft and strong
Built to be lived in
Built to house others and keep others safe within our walls
but those walls are built too high
we wall ourselves in in our houses and our bodies
but we are more than this
we are more than our bodies

I was not built for running but I still carry a spark
I am the cause of the electrical fire within you
I want to light you up like the Fourth of July and I want to set your nerves ablaze
Burn you out like a road flare, fading away into the dark
Streaking across the sky like a meteor only to crash into the mountain, into the side of the house
We will all die on impact but we will burn twice as bright for all that we have lost
I was not built for running
but I was built to burn

The piece reflects surprisingly deliberate structure given its highly emotional and somewhat haphazard tone. I found myself stuck trying to see where you were going with it, which is to say that I knew you *were* going somewhere with it from early on.

When I did reach the end, I felt satisfied with the concise closing line, but a little bit vacant on message. You were built to burn, is the clear conclusion. But the concept of burning and fire is only approached in the final verse. Confined to the context of that verse, it means you were built to have a powerful and fiery impact on another person. My conjecture is that the rest of the piece is building up a sense of your inability to do so. Which means the real theme is that despite the limitations to which you were born, you are still capable, and perhaps even *more* capable than you would otherwise be, of having a profound impact on someone's life. It's part plea, part complaint, part declaration of indifference.